OUR ISLAND STORY 161 Some twenty hours We lay in a dead calm, and from aloft Could see the fragile gently murtured dame Dragging huge stones and staggering under faggots Helping the man and witch to build a hut, Then as a breath came round big nor'-nor'-east. We spread our wings and left them to their fate" If this story were true, it is not wonderful that RobervaFs efforts to colonize Canada ended in failure, or that he, himself, came to an untimely end. The poet, John Hunter Duvar , was born in the small seaport town of , in the County of Fifeshire, Scotland , on the 29th of August, 1830. He was of English as well as Scotch paren¬ tage, and the family name was Hunter. His education was obtained in his native town and at the university of Edinburgh. Early in life he became one of the British Associated Press Agents. As such he dispatched the news of the world to the newspapers published in the Motherland and in America. Before the telegraph cable was successfully laid there were ingenious methods of quickly distributing the news of the Crimean war and other important events. It is related that young Hunter collected the news current in England and forwarded it to Nova Scotia by the steamers, together with a bundle of the latest British papers,—all sealed up in a water-tight can. When the steamer arrived and was off Point Pleasant at the entrance of the can was thrown overboard to an employee of the Halifax agent of the Associated Press who awaited it in a boat, and taken at once, as fast as possible, to the office of the agent in Halifax. There the news was assorted, and thence for¬ warded by telegraph and the Post Office to points in the States and Canada , whence it was, in turn, distributed to the offices forming the Associated Press. After the war young Hunter came to Halifax with his young wife. At that time and after¬ wards another " John Hunter " lived in Halifax and in Prince Ed ¬ ward Island. One or the other frequently obtained his letters and papers, and other annoyances were caused. For that reason